Saskatchewan Jazz Festival faces challenges with dropping dollar

Crowds came out in droves to see the Roots, Erykah Badu, and Charlie Tuna at the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival last year. But now getting the big international names is proving to be a challenge with the dropping Canadian dollar.

The festival celebrates 30 years in 2016, but pulling in artists for the anniversary is becoming difficult when the festival has to pay in American dollars.

"It certainly makes our job a lot more difficult,"artistic director KevinTobinsaid."It makes us be much more creative with our budget and try to stretch every dollar that we can in order to present the best festival that we can.

"It definitely has an impact on our budget.It has an impact on our programming strategies, our marketing strategies."

Tobin said they began looking at the impact of the dropping dollar before last year's festival even started.He said they've specifically been recruiting more Canadian artists in order to be responsible with the budget and keep the festival sustainable.

"When you are right now budgeting for an additional 40 per cent when you are paying a particular artist in US dollars, that is a significant amount," Tobin said.

"[We look at] how that trickles down to your overall budget, how it effects your ticket prices."

He added that a priority is to keep the festival accessible and affordable.

The Jazz Festival runs for ten days each summer and has an attendance of over 85,000 people. It will run this year from June 24 to July 3.